236: Emily Sundberg

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. After doing Hot Girls Drink Milk and Martinis Are Back and Dime Square Is Dead, there's this expectation that I'm going to have hot takes. And I'm okay with the angry comments online as well, because my life doesn't depend on people liking my writing. You're listening to The Taste Podcast. I'm your host, Eliza Barbinell. Emily Sundberg has a knack for writing stories that get people talking. The freelance writer and mind behind the business newsletter Feed Me has an expert eye for trends in the food space and beyond, like the return of whole milk and the rise of the shoppy shop.

1:12You know, those cute curated grocery stores that all seem to carry the same made-for-Instagram products. We're thrilled to have her on the podcast to forecast the drink of the summer, the current state of founders in the DTC space, and much more. It's a fun episode, and I hope you'll enjoy.

1:37Emily Sundberg, thanks for coming on the Taste Podcast. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to talk to you about like a cornucopia of topics that I think you have insight on, because when else do I get like a front row seat to do that? And to start out, I want to ask, are the hot girls still drinking whole milk? All the hot girls I know are absolutely still drinking whole milk, and they're drinking more of it even than two years ago when that story first dropped, I think. Can you give context maybe for people that don't know immediately what we're referring to, what the story was? Sure. So I was traveling during the summer of 2021 and I came back and something that I picked up was that all of the alt milks that we're crazy about here in New York at all the coffee shops didn't really exist overseas yet.

2:28I was in Paris specifically where I sort of picked up that there were no long lists of drink adjustments. so I emailed my um my editor at New York magazine and I said you know I noticed this when I was traveling that all the girls are drinking whole milk and not thinking twice about it um and he was like okay maybe maybe not then I went out and I was back in New York and I was starting to listen to orders of my friends in New York and seeing I follow a few people that work at coffee shops. My friend Mika works at Dimes and she tweeted something about hot girls drinking whole milk. And I was like, OK, this is something that's trickling into New York.

3:10Like I'm seeing that there might be like a return to the land here in terms of milk preferences. And then I wrote a general trend story about people not going so hard with soy milk and oat milk and all these other things. And that one quote from Mieke about hot girls drinking whole milk really exploded. And a lot of people agreed with it. You know, there were a lot of people who were saying, I've been drinking whole milk the whole time. A lot of people said, I found out that oat milk has all these thickeners and sugars in it, and I don't want to drink that anymore. And then a few days later, the Oatly stock kind of got fucked.

3:50So I don't know if it was contributed to that. But But yeah, that was my little hot girl's whole milk story. Claiming that energy that the Oatly stock plummeted because of the Grub Street piece. Yeah, I'm going to take that. Yeah, I got some nice emails, though. Like a few people that work in Vermont government emailed me, and they were really grateful because they have a huge dairy industry there. And I think that their practices are probably better than some other places in the country. And they were really excited about that. I got a lot of really angry emails from PETA people saying, you're promoting murder.

4:24it was pretty divisive, but most of my stories are. Yeah, that's why I wanted to lead with this, because I think that you have such a talent of writing these trend stories that provoke a really strong reaction in people, like whether or not they're in favor or they want to show off how much they disagree with you about that. And I'm curious, like, how do you find these ideas? And do you often know that they're going to be kind of provoking this reaction in some way? So I spend a lot of time online, but I also spend a lot of time out. So I go to a lot of parties. I go to a lot of dinners. I try to spend time with new friends.

4:58I network as a big part of my week and sometimes day. I try to spend a lot of time with a lot of people. And when I take all that in, you know, sometimes it's the middle of the night. Sometimes it's the subway home, whatever. But, you know, when I hear things two, three, four times and begin to notice a trend, I then sort of do a litmus test back out to the world. So I'll text different age or groups of friends and say, like, hey, is this resonating with you? Is this something that you've seen? You work in a drugstore. You work in a wine store. You're a professor. You're another writer. Like, what do you think of these things?

5:39And pretty immediately I know if something's going to take off. I think another thing that I have with a lot of the stories that I write, an advantage that I have is that I'm not on staff at a magazine. So I don't have a larger board of people who could potentially say, like, we can't write like that anymore, Emily, or we need to make these advertisers happy. Or, you know, you have a specific beat here. I have more of a relationship with magazines where I can pitch an idea. And if they like it, great. And they'll take a risk on it. And if they don't, like, they can easily say no. So I think part of the reason I'm able to do the stories that I do is because I'm freelance.

6:15And now after doing Hot Girls Drink Milk and Martinis Are Back and Dime Square is dead, there's this expectation that I'm going to have hot takes. And I'm OK with the angry comments online as well, like because my life doesn't depend on, you know, people liking my writing, I guess. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to talk about the way that these things exist online versus talking about conversations in real life, because when I think of you as a writer, I feel like you're somebody that was very much trained in this online space, but you don't necessarily take it that seriously. And one of the biggest issues I have with people that are chronically online is that they take everything so seriously.

6:55My life has been pretty public for most of my adult career. I worked in social media and I've just always sort of had a relationship with the larger, in quotes readership that I've developed. Do I take things seriously? I guess I know that I have like a really fulfilling life outside of my writing. So I'm able to see it as like a vehicle of starting conversations and obviously make cash. But I have I have day jobs that that support me so I can sort of write the stories that I do. And I'm pretty vigilant about what I put out there. Like, I don't think I've ever written or said something that if it was voiced back to me, I would have to apologize for it.

7:40And I try to live like that just through the stories that I put out or even tweets or comments that I make. I've developed quite a bit of vigilance around all of that. Yeah, I think that makes sense. And I want to talk about another story of yours that is actually a very offline piece, which is about the shoppy shop, which I was so delighted by. So I'm wondering if first you could just define what a shoppy shop is, or maybe tell people some warning signs if they've walked into something that they're in a shoppy shop. So in simplest terms, a shoppy shop is when you walk into a space and see a retail setup with all of these brands that you were first introduced to probably on Instagram.

8:18Could you name a few, maybe? Sure. Big Night in Greenpoint is definitely a shoppy shop. There's this new a store downtown called Pop-Up Grocer. That is certainly a shoppy shop to me. There's a store in Los Angeles called Wine and Eggs, and that was in the story as well. I would consider that a shoppy shop. But it's not just these stores, right? So you're seeing similar retail setups in hotel lobbies, or you might even start to go to your wine store or bookstore and start to see, you know, olive oil and squeeze bottles and glass jars of spices and, you know, certain chocolate bar brands and be like, wait, I am seeing this thing everywhere I go.

9:06It's not really native to a place. It's not like, oh, this is my favorite Midwestern ice cream brand or salt brand from the Pacific coast. It's like these things are born on Instagram and they live everywhere. So I don't really know where they're from, but I've probably seen the packaging online or I've heard their founder speak in some forum at some point. Yeah. And then like, what's the take on the shoppy shop that the article is presenting? There wasn't really a take, which is part of the reason it unraveled the way it did. I wasn't saying these things are good or bad. I was putting language to the fact that they existed.

9:47I also didn't coin the term shoppy shop. I found that from one of the people that I interviewed who had a sort of viral TikTok series about this term. But I was pointing out that these things exist. And I was pointing out that there's this sort of secondary term that came into the story called small washing, which was that a lot of these businesses pride themselves on being small or woman owned or local to a certain area. And they really went hard on that as a selling point. So you really believe that you were supporting this tiny, small business. But then when you dug a little bit deeper, you could see that they've raised a ton of cash or they have venture backers or whatever.

10:30And again, I didn't say that that was good or bad, but people took it that way. And then the third part of the story was that there's this massive underlying software called Fair, which is really an online wholesale marketplace where anybody anywhere could log on and order 100 or more items from one of these small internet-y brands. which is why if you go in the middle of Nebraska or Miami or now even overseas, you can see these like Graza olive oil or Omsom or Fly by Jing or whatever. And you don't need to go to trade shows anymore and have to like meet the founders and do that. There's like a software that can do that for you.

11:15But I didn't have a take. I think people thought certain things that I pointed out were negs or like judgments. Yeah. But all I'm asking for is for businesses to be honest about who they are and think highly of their customers who are likely going to figure out what they're doing at some point and not to sort of gloss over them with like shiny marketing. Yeah, I think that was what was really interesting about it. And also, like, I have a personal angle on this, which is that, like, I run a small magazine that, like, we all the time are trying to get into stock at different places around the country.

11:49And, you know, like, distribution is something that people can do. And, like, we have done it in a very grassroots way, partially because we've never done it before. And, like, we didn't – we wanted to see how much we could play out our hand ourselves. But I think that most people don't have insight into, like, how do things get to places? Like, how can I get fishwife tinned anchovies at all these different places around the country? And just to be talking about those connections, like, isn't necessarily a judgment, but it's not information that people normally have. So sometimes it doesn't get processed in that way.

12:19Yeah, I think that's correct. I also think that whenever somebody pulls back the curtain on something that we've all been exposed to, and it's like this Oz moment of like, oh, it's just that they all know the same tech company. Like, it's almost like they lose a little bit of the magic. Like, there was one line in the story that I said, when you see the fishwife or the whatever item, it's like, oh, this isn't just, it's sort of a mirage moment where this isn't just something that I see on my Instagram stories every day and order online and it magically shows up at my doorstep. It's like, here, I can pick it up.

12:57I can look at it. I see it next to all the different brands that I like, which when you find out that it's a tech company facilitating that, it might be a little disenchanting. But I don't, I also, like, I'm a big believer in tech. And I think it's amazing for all these businesses that they have that. Yeah. I mean, we're just talking about logistics, which maybe isn't sexy. And so that's why people don't want to know about it. But like, obviously things have to get somewhere. And if you're a fan of these brands and you want them to be around, knowing that there are channels that are actually like giving them revenue isn't a problem either.

13:27Correct. Yeah. So you mentioned a little bit about just this idea of wanting businesses to be transparent with people. And I kind of see that as a through line in your newsletter. And I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit about the idea behind it and your kind of like perspective that you're sharing in it. Sure. So I write a daily business newsletter. It's called Feed Me. And it aggregates what I consider the most important business related stories of the day. So I send it out around 8 a.m. It is everything from job changes that I see on LinkedIn or people's personal posts on their Instagram to much larger news stories like the fall of Silicon Valley Bank or, you know, acquisitions of D2C brands to large retailers.

14:17There's a pretty wide range in it. And I think that that's why it's really resonated with people. It's almost like this type of conversation that you'd normally be having in a group text. And then I think another reason why it's resonating with people is because I don't just say like, here are 10 things that happened. It's like, here are 10 things that happened and these are my opinions on it. And what I started seeing really quickly, I would say a big percentage of my readers are investors or people that work at different investment funds, is that they started replying to me saying like, oh, I agree with this, or we've been talking about this in the boardroom or we've been making investments, thinking this, and now, you know, you saying this about all your friends is making us think this.

15:01So there's like these puppeteers that have been sort of going with larger trends. And when they hear about the smaller trends, I've started to hear them like hitting the brakes. And then on more of just like a regular reader level, if I have a friend who works at a restaurant or a friend that works at a social media company or a friend who's a writer, I've often heard that they can like go into their day of meetings, like feeling a little bit smarter about a slightly wider range of things than if they just hit like the cut New York Times and I don't know, the New Yorker or something. I try to read a lot of business journals.

15:40I try to follow a lot of different Twitter sub communities of like D to C Twitter and restaurant Twitter and hospitality quality Twitter. And I spend a lot of time online. So this is sort of like, hey, if I'm going to talk about this stuff with all of my friends all the time, why not package it up, put it somewhere on the Internet, maybe make some cash from it? Yeah, I think it makes total sense. And it speaks to kind of your perspective as a writer, kind of having an eye on trends and then also the background that you have, like consulting and working for these different companies. And it is such a broad range, but obviously this is a kind of food focused podcast.

16:17So I'm curious if you're seeing anything that's happening maybe in the DTC world with food or kind of these hospitality spaces that you think is maybe like indicative of a larger trend or something that you think is happening in like these food businesses that feels really separate to kind of other things that are going on. Well, listen, like the biggest thing in DTC Twitter right now is just that the economy is really tough. Like it's really hard right now to raise money. It's really hard to stand out amongst competitors, all these markets, whether it's beverages or packaged goods or even like general content, like being an influencer, like it is all very crowded.

16:56And to get cash and grow and succeed, like you really need to tell a unique story. So that's one thing that I'm really curious about this year, just like who will make it, who will fail, who will have to sell off to a larger conglomerate or get absorbed. I'm fascinated by founder stories. I've worked for all types of founders and co-founders. So I think that is something that we'll be following this year, just like the changing relationship that consumers have with founders. Like we just saw that whole Graza situation last week where a founder felt the need to like go on to LinkedIn and post a whole thing about their competitors.

17:40And that's... Just to be clear, people aren't following this. It's that Brightland Olive Oil released a squeeze bottle olive oil, which Graza had as part of their core line when they launched. But obviously neither of these brands originated having olive oil in a squeeze bottle. Right. None of us invented a squeeze bottle for olive oil. None of us invented plastic. Um, so, you know, the way that that founder, um, Andrew, is that his name? Yeah. Went to LinkedIn and posted about competition and how it was, you know, this terrible thing that Brightland released a squeeze bottle. Like, that is a line that I'm really curious to watch this year, the same way that a lot of brands posted about, I think, you know, Melanie from Ghia.

18:29And I think Omsom was also posting about SVB during the bank melting down, like that third wall being broken. Also, Jenny from Jenny's Ice Cream has been posting a lot of her personal spiritual journey on the Jenny's account. Whoa, I missed that. That is something that I'm fascinated by, the closeness that founders have with their customers on social media. So I'm going to be watching very closely this year how – because, again, like their customers are smart. Like you start posting about designer bags or$800 a night hotel rooms, like you're losing a bit of the story and connection there. So those are always things that I'm keeping a big eye out for.

19:15And you can expect those types of commentary in my newsletter. What else? I'm always fascinated by booze culture and how people are going to be drinking. I've heard from some bartender friends that people are ordering water more than ever, which sort of feels like a skip from mocktails. I think people are probably like, why am I spending$15 on a mocktail when I can probably just get water and figure out what I'm going to do afterwards when I get home? So people are ordering water instead of, not in addition to a drink, but as the only thing they're getting. As the only thing they're drinking. That's a bummer for bartenders.

19:52It's a total bummer for bartenders. um I don't think that we've seen like our cocktail of the summer yet though like last year we had martinis and then we had dirty Shirley yeah I think that was last summer yeah that was last summer but I went to uh Webster Hall like two weeks ago and they had the dirty Shirley up everywhere as like their cocktail they were pushing oh that's really fun it's a great drink it's a great drink and my girlfriend's name is Shirley so every time I see that I'm always just like it's so funny but I don't drink them so it's just like seeing the name you know yeah Yeah, it's a fun drink to order.

20:25It's a fun drink to say. Everybody loves a cherry. So I'm curious what the drink of this summer will be. We know that there's so many ready-to-drink cocktails. I think that's a space that's super exciting. Can we just rewind to the drink of the summer conversation? Like, why is that something that we're so fixated on? Why does that matter? It tells a bigger story about how people are behaving, right? Like, if everybody is ordering martinis, which is what I was hearing last summer when I reported on that story for New York Magazine. Like, what does it say about us that we're trying to get, like, wasted so quickly?

20:59What does it say that we want to do that in a way that's more expensive than taking a few shots? What does it say that we're choosing to get wasted in a way that's more expensive than a few shots and also customizable? Like, we want it. We want it our way. And the larger story there ended up being, like, we're not doing well, folks. Like, we're in the wake of COVID. There's a war in Ukraine. People are depressed. There's a, you know, the city felt a little bit more chaotic a year ago than it did right now, although it sort of always feels chaotic. And all the bartenders were sort of saying, like, this is the coping mechanism that people are asking for.

21:39Yeah, there was a great quote from, I think it was Long Island Bars' beverage director that was just like, I've never seen people drinking this many martinis. I wish I could paraphrase the quote better, but it was really funny. Yeah. He said their point of sale system was like through the roof on martinis in ways that it hadn't been ever. And I think that cocktail is also like the glass is so sexy to hold and it kind of is nostalgic for an era that nobody of that younger generation was a part of. So to me, it felt very much like I'm back out in the world and I'm swishing around my like incredibly alcoholic beverage as a manifestation of that.

22:14And it's highly Instagrammable. Yeah, I don't even drink martinis, but I take pictures of other people's because they, yeah, they're sexy. They're great. They're super sexy. And I think that's similar with the Dirty Shirley, right? Like you get a cherry, you have something bright red, and you get to say something fun to the bartender when they say, what do you want? For this summer, I don't know. I hope it's not water. That's a bummer. I mean, there was the whole white Negroni Spagliato meme moment that happened a couple months ago. Do you remember this? Yeah, I do. I do. that that video from the House of Dragons actors.

22:48Yeah. Which I thought actually is one of my favorite drinks. And then when it happened, I felt self-conscious that people thought that I was ordering it to be a part of a trend. And then I got over that because I was like, why do I care what this bartender thinks of me? I love this drink. And now more people are ordering it. It's easier for me to get it. Yeah. Yeah. That's I remember that starting to see it on menus. And I was like, wait, was this here already? Are you putting this here because of this meme? um i think that more places are going to have like these canned drinks that people are seeing emerge um i just read about fisher's island lemonade have you heard of that no tell me everything okay so there's this island between connecticut and long island called fisher's island and it's like a very blue blood old money island like further out from nantucket whatever and um Um, there's an old hotel on the island and the, the, the one, the woman whose family owned the hotel started a canned drink based off of the house cocktail of the hotel called Fisher's Island Lemonade.

23:52And, um, it's been around, I think since like 2016 or 17, but it's sort of exploded in the last few years. And it just got acquired by a larger, um, spirits company last week. I think Gallo Spirits, which has a few, they also have High Noon, I think. But that acquisition, I thought we were kind of done with those types of acquisitions because there's so many of them already. But, like, it makes so much sense. It's like you're part of this place that you're probably never going to go because it's really hard to get to. You're sort of indulging in this quiet luxury thing. It's the same kind of – what was that East Hampton rosé that everybody drank for a while?

24:30It's like Wolford Estate. Wolford Estate, yeah. You're engaging with like the Hamptons or Fisher's Island without actually being there. Also, it might taste great. We should try it. I haven't had it yet. We should try it. And it's interesting that you're saying this because it's reminding me of something that I tried recently, which is Talk House, which is the old venue in the Hamptons. that's a family run place is doing canned drinks, like a tequila Paloma or like a Tacos Encore is the name of their canned line, which is a very similar story, right, of kind of a longstanding hospitality institution in a summer vacation-y place that's now selling canned versions of the drinks that they've already been serving, which like when you talk earlier about having founder stories and authenticity, like it does feel that so many people are getting in on the canned beverage game these days.

25:20And if it's somebody that has been making that drink for a while or there's this is kind of this kind of myth building, I do think that kind of works on me. Yeah. I mean, that was the whole idea behind Ghia, right? It's like this Italian aperitivo culture that you're engaging in by mixing it with ice and seltzer and like a squeeze of lemon. And it you whenever I mean, I get sent Ghia a lot, which I'm grateful for. But whenever I like make one of those drinks, because I'm like, oh, this is sort of an experience and I'm indulging in something like far away from me. So, yeah, I guess like I'm curious how all of these new canned beverages ready to drink will also affect like the drink of the summer and bartenders because it's the same conversation about automating that is going on in the rest of our culture of just like they don't need to do anything besides open it.

26:11Yeah, I mean, for me, my drink of the summer is always a pina colada or anything that's in the frozen drink case just because I have a scarcity mentality about it and it's there and I know I'm not gonna have it forever. So if I was predicting, maybe it's gonna be some kind of frozen thing. But of course, from the bar perspective, it's a lot of logistics to have one of those machines and to be cleaning it. Yeah, so what's the story there? Like, why is it difficult? Because I've also been noticing that there's a shortage of frozen yogurt places and it feels like it might be a similar problem of just like cleaning out this massive thing.

26:42I know that my friend Adam, who's the manager at Honey's, said that they were doing a painkiller and then they switched it to a frozen margarita because the dairy, the coconut in the painkiller was, I don't know if it was something about the temperature and it was congealing or what, but just said it was kind of like a pain in the ass to clean that machine. And so they switched their drinks because of that. I was at a wedding at a hotel recently and on the whole hotel property, they didn't use any blenders because they didn't want to disrupt guests. So you could only have like margaritas on the rocks or pina coladas on the rocks.